Human Trafficking - Full Report

Written By JD Bauman

Written by Vesa Hautala

Report depth:

Intermediate

This is an exploratory cause area report. CFI has less confidence in this area compared with our top causes.

Est. read time: 30-40 minutes

Quick facts

  • There are 27.6 million people in forced labour in the world at any given time.

    • 17.3 million exploited for their labour in the private sector

    • 6.3 million in forced sexual exploitation

    • 3.9 million in state-imposed forced labour

  • Forced labour generates an estimated $236 billion in profits annually

  • Based on detected cases, most human trafficking takes place within countries 

  • Human trafficking doesn’t necessarily involve the movement of people. (See US State Department’s definition)

  • Media portrayals of human trafficking have been accused of sensational, inaccurate, and racist portrayals of human trafficking.

  • Trafficking doesn’t always involve kidnapping or physically forcing the victims - only around 4% of registered trafficked persons are abducted.

What is human trafficking?

Despite the word “trafficking”, human trafficking doesn’t necessarily involve the movement of people. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines human trafficking as consisting of three core elements: the act, the means, and the purpose, based on the UN Palermo protocol. The U.S. Department of State uses a similar definition, quoted below:

Forced Labor, sometimes also referred to as labor trafficking, encompasses the range of activities involved when a person uses force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the labor or services of another person.

The “acts” element of forced labor is met when the trafficker recruits, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains a person for labor or services.

The “means” element of forced labor includes a trafficker’s use of force, fraud, or coercion.  The coercive scheme can include threats of force, debt manipulation, withholding of pay, confiscation of identity documents, psychological coercion, reputational harm, manipulation of the use of addictive substances, threats to other people, or other forms of coercion.  

The “purpose” element focuses on the perpetrator’s goal to exploit a person’s labor or services.  There is no limit on the location or type of industry.  Traffickers can commit this crime in any sector or setting, whether legal or illicit, including but not limited to agricultural fields, factories, restaurants, hotels, massage parlors, retail stores, fishing vessels, mines, private homes, or drug trafficking operations.

All three elements are essential to constitute the crime of forced labor.

Human trafficking and modern slavery are closely related though not entirely identical concepts. Forced marriage is a large part of modern slavery, but it will not be discussed in this report.

There is some discrepancy between different sources in how exactly they define human trafficking and its relationship to modern slavery. Sometimes forced labour is used interchangeably with human trafficking. For example, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Transportation use ILO’s estimate of the number of people in forced labour as their estimate of the total number of trafficked people, implying that they count this form of moderns slavery as human trafficking.

This report will draw from sources on modern slavery when discussing forced labour, including forced commercial sexual exploitation. One reason for this decision is that major data sources specifically on human trafficking present data from detected cases of human trafficking, which is only a very small fraction of all cases. For modern slavery, including forced labour, there are easily accessible estimates of total prevalence, which are more helpful in giving an idea of the size of the problem.

Christian perspectives

The Bible

The topic of slavery in the Bible is somewhat difficult because the Bible was written in a time and place where slavery was widely practised and generally considered an inevitable part of life. The Bible does not contain an explicit blanket condemnation of slavery. However, throughout the history of Christianity, many believers started to consider slavery as wrong based on their faith (see Theological considerations section below).

The Law of Moses contains precepts aimed at better treatment of slaves. In the New Testament several passages speak of the equal worth of all people, whether slave or free—perhaps most famously Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (NKJV)

The first epistle to Timothy 1:10 condemns a group of people variously translated as “menstealers” (KJV), “kidnappers” (NASB, HCSB, NKJV), “enslavers” (ESV) or “slave traders” (NRSV, NIV). This condemnation is part of a long list of various things “contrary to sound doctrine” (RSV). The Greek term ἀνδραποδιστής (andrapodistés) refers to a person who unjustly reduces free people to slavery (or steals the slaves of others). 

There are also other passages that are relevant to practices that are part of human trafficking, such as wage theft.

  • The Law of Moses forbids withholding the wages of a day labourer in Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14–15.

    • Trafficked people are commonly paid late or not at all at all—see below under Economic harms of human trafficking

  • Jeremiah 22:13 (RSV): “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing, and does not give him his wages.”

    • This verse is especially relevant since victims of forced labour often work in construction!

  • The same condemnation is repeated in the New Testament in James 5:4: “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts” (RSV).

Many verses in the Bible condemn oppression and injustice, especially against vulnerable people. As these are almost by definition a part of human trafficking, these verses prohibit the practice even in the absence of an explicit condemnation of slavery.

Verses speaking against the oppression of the vulnerable are particularly relevant because trafficked people are often from vulnerable groups and the traffickers exploit this.

Theological considerations

St. Gregory of Nyssa from the 4th century A.D. was an early critic of the practice of slavery.

Many Christians have historically lived in societies where slavery was common, but throughout the centuries, many of them came to the conclusion that God does not approve of slavery, even if he has tolerated it in the past. Examples include St. Gregory of Nyssa from the fourth century and William Wilberforce and other Christian abolitionists from the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is often said that Christianity contributed to the decline of slavery in the Roman Empire. Christians saw freeing slaves as a good thing to do. During the period when slavery still existed widely, Christian teachers such as St. John Chrysostom were urging better treatment of slaves.

The argument against human trafficking and slavery can be based on the core Christian principle that humans are created in the image of God. Should the image of God be treated as property, exploited, or oppressed?

The fact that God is the creator of every person and has given humans free will also goes against the idea of humans owning another human being. Human trafficking violates the dignity and sanctity humans bear as the image of God.

Christian ethics is based on love. The commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself is incompatible with the cruel realities of human trafficking.

Does the Christian perspective on human trafficking differ from a secular perspective?

  • Christians may see human trafficking as a particularly gross violation of the dignity of the image of God. 

    • Christian anti-slavery history might contribute to this: Christians were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, and enslaved people in the pre-abolition US commonly envisioned freedom from slavery through imagery borrowed from the Bible.

  • Human trafficking has become a well-known cause among Christians, especially US evangelicals.

  • At the same time, there are poor depictions of sex trafficking that further misleading and stereotypical views of what is a complex problem.

  • Christians should be aware of stereotypes and misrepresentations relating to human trafficking that may unfortunately be presented in Christian media as well.

    • The movie Sound of Freedom, for example, has been criticised for its portrayal of trafficking scenarios, simplifying complex issues, and showcasing tactics that might inadvertently increase demand for trafficked children.

    • Be aware of sensationalising tendencies and people exploiting the strong emotions the topic raises

Types of human trafficking

As mentioned above in the definition section, modern slavery and human trafficking are closely related though not identical. Because of the overlap between the two in forced labour (including forced commercial sexual exploitation), this section will use data on modern slavery on these two phenomena.

Most forced labour is imposed by private actors (86% of all instances) as forced labour exploitation (63%) or forced commercial sexual exploitation (23%). The remaining 14% is state-imposed forced labour.

Forced labour in the private economy

The ILO report on the economics of forced labour discusses different types of privately-imposed forced labour:

“Among cases of forced labour in the private economy where the type of work was known, the four broad sectors accounting for the majority of total forced labour (89 per cent) are industry, services, agriculture, and domestic work.4 These sectors are defined as follows:

▸ The industry sector includes mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction and utilities.

▸ The services sector encompasses activities related to wholesale and trade, accommodation and food service activities, art and entertainment, personal services, administrative and support services, education, health and social services, and transport and storage.

▸ The agriculture sector includes forestry, hunting as well as the cultivation of crops, livestock production and fishing.

▸ Domestic work is that performed in third party households.

Other sectors … include people forced to beg for a third party, and people forced to be involved in illicit activities.”

The ILO Global Estimates of Modern Slavery Forced Labour and Forced Marriage report states that about 40% of people in forced labour were women and girls (11.8M our of 27.6M total)

The same report estimates that more than ~12% (3.3M out of 27.6M total) are children.

  • The percentage of children varies a lot between regions and industries, though. For example, roughly one in five workers documented in India’s hand-made carpet supply chain were minors; the same investigation found that half of the total workforce (children and adults) met India’s legal test for forced labour.

In some contexts, labour trafficking is neglected compared to sex trafficking. In the US, “[l]abor trafficking is difficult to identify and poorly understood compared to sex trafficking.”

Sex trafficking

  • ILO estimates that on any given day, 6.6 million people are in situations of forced commercial sexual exploitation, of which 1.7 million are children.

  • Victims of sexual slavery are often manipulated into believing that they are being recruited to work in legitimate forms of employment.

  • Those who are prostituted in the sex industry are exposed to inhumane and potentially fatal conditions, especially with the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.

  • “[M]ost anti-trafficking efforts by law enforcement and community-based organizations have focused on sex trafficking” (Labor Trafficking in Construction and Hospitality by RTI)

State-imposed forced labour

(Source for this section: ILO’s Global Estimates of Modern Slavery. Forced Labour and Forced Marriage)

3.9 million people were estimated to be in state-imposed forced labour at any given time in 2021

  • Of these, 78% were male

  • 8% were children

Types of state-imposed forced labour include

  • Abuse of compulsory prison labour

    • imposition of compulsory work on people detained for non-violent political offenses is an especially common violation

    • other violations include imprisonment and forced labour for breaches of labour discipline, non-violent participation in strikes, imposition of labour on persons in pre-trial detention, etc.

  • Abuse of conscription 

    • forcing conscripts subject to compulsory military service laws to perform work not of a purely military character

  • Compulsory labour for the purpose of economic development, and abuse of the obligation to perform work as part of normal civic obligations or minor communal services

    • for example, in Turkmenistan the government forces many workers and students to participate in cotton harvesting for for little or no compensation and under threat of substantial fines.

Trafficked persons

Gender: Of the people in forced labour globally, 43% are female (11.3M out of 27.6M) (ILO’s estimate.)

Vulnerability: Traffickers often target and victimize individuals in vulnerable situations such as those “experiencing conflict, natural disasters, poverty, challenging home lives, systemic oppression, or a combination of hardships.” (US Department of State 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report)

Socioeconomic status: An analysis of data from a dataset of trafficking survivors found that “40% of those who were trafficked had a secondary education and only 16% self-identified as very poor”. (US Department of State 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report)

Children as trafficking victims

Over 3.3 million children are in forced labour – about 12% of the total.

Children are frequently trafficked under the false promise of a better life, only to face numerous forms of exploitation. They may be placed in domestic servitude or forced to work in cottage industries, manufacturing, or the entertainment and sex industry. Trafficked children frequently have to work for excessive periods and under very hazardous working conditions. They frequently receive little to no pay. Sometimes children are trafficked for prostitution, theft, begging or drug trading, or to become child soldiers. (Source)

Girls are typically trafficked “for sexual exploitation and to a lesser extent for forced labour and other forms of exploitation such as forced marriage”. Boys are primarily trafficked “for forced labour and for other forms of exploitation, typically forced criminality”. (UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons Report 2024)

Since 2019, there has been an increase of approximately 31 per cent in detected child victims.

Perpetrators

Both men and women are involved in trafficking as perpetrators. According to the UNODC Global Trafficking in Persons 2024 report, 70% of those who were investigated, prosecuted and convicted for human trafficking in 2022 were men. Note, though, that only a small minority of human trafficking cases ever come under legal investigation. The report concludes that the findings suggest most traffickers operate in structured groups or loose networks, and that these groups exploit more victims per trafficker than other types of traffickers.

Kyla Raby and Nerida Chasal have identified four common stereotypes associated with traffickers: “that they are male, unknown to their victims, foreigners, and use physical force to control their victims”. They then proceed to show that these stereotypes are often not true. For example, it is often necessary for the trafficker to gain the trust of their potential victim so that strategies of coercion, fraud, deception, or abuse of power would work in recruiting. Traffickers may do this by first establishing a non-exploitative relationship with the victim and increasing coercion and control gradually. Traffickers also often recruit people of the same nationality and background as themselves to help establish trust.

Geographic patterns of human trafficking

The information in this section is from UNODC’s 2024 Global Trafficking in Persons Report (GLOTIP 2024) unless indicated otherwise. The report is focused on detected cases, which are only a fraction of all instances of human trafficking. Most human trafficking goes undetected.

Data on detected victims shows that human trafficking occurs in every region of the world. Most detected trafficking takes place within countries or within the same region, e.g. within Sub-Saharan Africa. The figure below from GLOTIP 2024 shows the main detected transregional trafficking flows.

UNODC’s summarises findings on this FAQ page:  

Europe, the Middle East, North America and some countries in East Asia and the Pacific are destinations for trafficking victims from a wide range of origins. In 2020, 65 per cent of the victims detected in Western and Southern Europe were foreign-born trafficked from a wide variety of origin countries. During the same period, victims from East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa were detected in a large number of countries in almost every region of the world. Central and South-Eastern European victims were detected in large numbers but mainly in European destinations.

Based on detected cases, there is regional variation in the patterns of human trafficking. The figure from the GLOTIP 2024 below illustrates the main detected victims and forms of exploitation in different regions.

The importance of the problem

Scale

Modern slavery is a large global problem. 49.6 million people are in modern slavery on any given day according to ILO’s estimate. Forced labour accounts for 27.6 million and forced marriage for 22 million of these.

Human trafficking is a big business. The International Labour Organization estimates that forced labour generates a total of $236 billion in profits annually (not counting state-imposed forced labour). This includes slavery, serfdom and bonded labour in addition to trafficking for forced labour. Encyclopedia Britannica estimates £32 billion in annual profits from human trafficking that involves illegal transport of people.

Harms

Mental, physical and sexual health problems are highly prevalent among trafficked people, and they experience high levels of physical and sexual violence. Trafficking also harms people economically, socially, and spiritually.

Physical and sexual violence 

  • According to a study on the data in the largest global dataset of trafficking survivors, 54% of trafficking survivors reported physical and/or sexual violence.

    • However the study notes that many more may have been threatened with violence but not actually experienced it because they complied when threatened. Sixty percent of trafficking survivors reported themselves or their family being threatened 

    • Note also that the number is based on case-management interviews conducted by IOM protection. As such, it may not be representative of all cases, as most of them are never detected.

    • Other studies report varying levels of violence, with some studies on survivors of sex trafficking reporting much higher levels.

  • According to the same study, 76% of survivors reported that they were denied movement, food or water, and medical attention.

  • A large cross-sectional survey of 1,102 trafficking survivors across Southeast Asia reports similar numbers: 48% had experienced physical or sexual violence while trafficked.

  • Studies in Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana variously showed psychological, sexual, and physical violence against trafficking victims, hunger, abusive working conditions, restricted freedom, starvation, sleep deprivation, denial of healthcare, and verbal and physical abuse.

Other physical health issues

  • A report by Giving What We Can summarises “trafficking causes physical, sexual and psychological harm, and is associated with occupational hazards, legal restrictions and psychological problems as a result of marginalisation and stigmatization.” Reported health problems include:

    • headache

    • back pain

    • significant weight loss

    • sexual and reproductive health problems

    • sexually transmitted infections

    • injuries 

    • malnutrition 

    • infectious diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria and pneumonia worsen the situation of trafficking victims

  • An analysis of studies on HIV prevalence among trafficked sex workers found that the prevalence varied widely in different studies. The average prevalence is likely between 0.5–35.7%.

Mental health

Social harm

Spiritual harm

  • Trafficked people may be forced to do things like conducting online scams or sex work.

  • Trafficked people may be cut from their faith communities and otherwise hindered from practising their faith. This observation is not based on existing research, but it’s a deduction based on:

  1. People may be trafficked to locations that have a different culture, language or religion than the region they are from

  2. Trafficked people are often purposefully isolated from society to some degree

  3. The basic freedoms of trafficked persons are often limited by their traffickers

  4. Trafficked persons are commonly made to work long hours

These things may prevent them from attending worship, spending time in prayer, having access to Scripture and spiritual materials, and being able to spend time reading them.

However, the relationship between religion and trafficking is complex.

  • Some trafficked people have religion (Christianity or another religion) forced on them, while many trafficked persons find strength and comfort in their faith.

  • Traffickers may use religion as a harmful tool against their victims.

  • Traffickers may exploit religious minority status in societies that limit the rights of religious minorities or oppress them.

Economic harm

  • Trafficked people are often not paid at all or not paid in time. They may also be given food or housing instead of pay.

    • A study found that 82% of trafficked persons experienced withholding of wages and excessive working hours.

  • Trafficked people have diminished or no ability to financially support their families and communities in their countries of origin.

  • Trafficked people may end up with criminal records

Disability weight (DALYs)

  • Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) or Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) are commonly used to compare different global health interventions. 

    • They work by assigning a weight between 0 and 1 to various health conditions, where 0 equals perfect health and 1 the worst possible health state, effectively death. 

    • One year of life lived with a condition of severity 0.25, for example, would be considered equivalent to losing 25% of that time of healthy life, three months in this case. In this example, quality of life would be health-wise 75% of what it would be in full health.

  • Giving What We Can tentatively assigned modern slavery an approximate DALY weight of 0.3–0.7, though this is essentially an educated guess due to lack of research. 

    • This range suggests that the health burden of modern slavery is comparable to severe health conditions, which sounds reasonable, especially given that people in modern slavery often experience several health problems as the information above shows.

    • For comparison, acute low back pain with leg pain has a disability weight of 0.322, a moderate episode of major depressive disorder has a weight of 0.406, and severe multiple sclerosis has a weight of 0.707.

  • Using these numbers, we can calculate speculative DALYs for global modern slavery using the 27.6 million number (ILO estimate of people in modern slavery, not counting forced marriage): 8.3M DALYs annually if the weight is 0.3, and 19.3M DALYs using 0.7 as the weight. 

    • These numbers would make the global annual health burden of modern slavery around the same size as Interpersonal violence (26.8M), maternal disorders (12.3M) or conflict and terrorism (8.7M).

    • However, I want to re-emphasize that these numbers are speculation and not backed up by peer-reviewed research.

Violation Type Percentage
Threats to individual and family 61.2%
Use of deception 79.7%
Denied movement, food/water and medical attention 76.2%
Given drugs and alcohol 6.3%
Withholding of documents 61.0%
Debt bondage 36.3%
Withholding of wages and excessive working hours 82.4%

Is human trafficking a neglected problem?

Anti-trafficking efforts receive substantial support and attention, but current efforts have been insufficient to eradicate the problem, and human trafficking continues on a large scale.

Overall, human trafficking appears to have a relatively large amount of visibility as a problem. Governments fund anti-trafficking efforts for hundreds of millions of US dollars per year and most countries have signed the UN anti-trafficking protocol and have anti-trafficking legislation.

There are a large number of NGOs actively working on the problem. 

On the other hand, the impact of interventions is often questionable (see section on Anti-trafficking interventions below). Legislation is commonly weak or weakly enforced, and there are still huge gaps: 94 countries had no criminal law against slavery in 2020. Outside the context of human trafficking, almost two thirds of countries apparently did not criminalise serfdom, debt bondage, forced marriage, and child trafficking. The problem persists on a large scale despite about three decades of international attention.

The global annual funding of all anti-trafficking efforts is very likely under one per cent of the profits of human trafficking, estimated at $236 billion annually.

Funding of anti-trafficking

  • The US spent on average $248 million per year on anti-trafficking activities between fiscal years 2017–2021.

State funding has grown dramatically since the early 2000s. Between 2003 and 2012, twelve OECD donor countries, including the US, spent $124 million collectively in counter-trafficking efforts—half of what the US alone spent per year in 2027–2021. This reflects the growing concern regarding human trafficking since the late 1990s.

Still, there is likely room for more funding, given that the problem persists and that the estimated profits from human trafficking are still $236 billion annually. Because there is not much strong evidence currently regarding what kinds of interventions work best, there could be funding opportunities in research to figure this out and in funding especially promising interventions.

Organisations working on human trafficking

International organisations

  • the UN had international frameworks in place to prevent trafficking

  • The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

  • Interpol

  • IOM (International Organization for Migration)

  • ILO (International Labour Organization)

  • In the US, the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons is the main agency monitoring human trafficking. Various other federal agencies are also involved.

    • the Department of Justice

    • the Department of Homeland Security

    • the Department of Health and Human Services

    • the Department of Labor

  • Various NGOs (a sampling of some prominent organisations)—note, this is not an endorsement or a recommendation of these organisations; I have not conducted extensive research into their work.

    • Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW): A network of over 100 NGOs worldwide advocating for the rights of trafficked persons and promoting human rights-based approaches to trafficking.​

    • Anti-Slavery International: Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, focusing on ending slavery in all its forms.​

    • Freedom Fund: A philanthropic initiative dedicated to identifying and investing in effective frontline efforts to end modern slavery.​ (see below 

    • International Justice Mission (IJM): A global organization that rescues victims of violence, brings criminals to justice, restores survivors, and strengthens justice systems.​

    • Free the Slaves: Works to end slavery worldwide by empowering communities, strengthening laws, and providing survivor support.​

    • Polaris Project: Operates the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline and works to reshape systems that allow for sex and labor trafficking in North America.​

    • Asia Floor Wage Alliance: Advocates for living wages and decent working conditions in the Asian garment industry to combat labor exploitation.​

    • Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.): Focuses on rescuing children from sex trafficking and providing aftercare; has faced controversy regarding its methods. and the conduct of its leader.

    • ECPAT International: A global network dedicated to ending the sexual exploitation of children, focusing on trafficking, online exploitation, and exploitation in travel and tourism.​

    • Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW): An international NGO working to end human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.​ 

    • Hope for Justice: Identifies and rescues victims, advocates on their behalf, provides restorative care, and trains frontline professionals to tackle slavery.​

    • Love146: Works to end child trafficking and exploitation through prevention education and survivor care.

    • Maiti Nepal: A nonprofit organization in Nepal dedicated to helping victims of sex trafficking through rescue, rehabilitation, and advocacy.​

    • Prerana: An NGO operating in Mumbai's red-light districts, protecting children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.​

    • Ratanak International: Rescues children from sexual slavery in Cambodia and provides them with education, rehabilitation, and safety.​

    • Reaching Out Romania: A Romanian NGO that helps girls aged 13 to 22 exit the sex industry and rebuild their lives.​

    • Shared Hope International: Focuses on preventing sex trafficking, restoring victims, and bringing justice to vulnerable women and children.​

    • Stop the Traffik: A global movement of individuals, communities, and organizations fighting to prevent human trafficking.​

Tractability

Evidence of effective interventions

Due to a lack of high-quality evidence, I was not able to identify the most effective approaches with confidence. Below, I point to some promising interventions and findings on what does not work.

The current body of research on human trafficking interventions is weak compared to fields like global health, so I was not able to confidently identify top charities whose work is supported by a robust body of independent research. I was still able to identify promising interventions and areas where more research and better evaluation methods are needed, as well as highlight some useful findings. 

Various assessments and reviews on the impact of anti-trafficking interventions have noted that there is little evidence demonstrating impact and that evaluations of program effectiveness tend to be of poor quality. Evaluations of anti-trafficking interventions are conducted, but there are few high-quality measurements of the actual impact of the interventions. Evaluations have primarily focused on the progress of project implementation and how project outputs have been achieved, rather than the outcomes or impact of projects.  

It seems the situation has started improving beginning in the early 2020’s. The Innovations for Poverty Action Human Trafficking Research Initiative is one promising project that attempts to tackle the current lack of evidence on what programs work to reduce trafficking and support victims. Based on the expert feedback I received, HEAL Trafficking, Modern Slavery PEC and the ILO are other notable organisations actively addressing evidence gaps.

Note that a lack of evidence does not necessarily mean a lack of impact. An intervention may be highly effective in preventing human trafficking or supporting victims of modern slavery, even if rigorous academic evidence has not yet been established. However, without such evidence, recognizing the effectiveness of an intervention becomes challenging—particularly for those outside the field who are less familiar with its complexities.

Working on improving the evidence base on the effectiveness of anti-trafficking interventions appears to be an important and relatively neglected area.

Assessing effectiveness of interventions

Raising awareness

Evidence: mixed evidence for different types of programs; some promising interventions identified, but more research is needed.

Information and awareness-raising campaigns may improve knowledge but seem to generally have limited effects on changing unsafe migration practices or reducing human trafficking.

    • Pre-migration and knowledge-building and awareness-raising campaigns are one type of these campaigns. In these programs, people who might consider migrating to work and are vulnerable to human trafficking are given information that could protect them from exploitation. 

      • There is evidence that these interventions have not worked. A problem is that the interventions studied were not well-targeted or contextually tailored. 

      • These interventions may potentially be harmful when not grounded in the local context.

    • However, there may still be specific types of information and awareness-raising campaigns that work. 

      • “Increasing the availability of information on worker conditions in factories may lead to improvements in labor conditions and worker rights and reduce trafficking.” (Human Trafficking Prevention: Improving Interventions to Combat Forced Labor and Human Trafficking by Innovation for Povery Action)

      • An ILO impact study on a fair recruitment program for garment workers migrating from Nepal to Jordan found significantly lower debt and deception for those hired under an ethical recruitment model.

        • This was identified as promising by Innovations for Poverty Action as an intervention that may improve labour conditions for migrant workers and reduce exploitation in destination countries.

        • The fair recruitment program “provided job-match screening, the elimination of recruitment fees, and a month-long pre-departure training covering job details, terms of their contract, work conditions and skills training”. (Source)

Freedom Fund's hotspot model

Freedom Fund funds local NGOs to work in human trafficking hotspots. Their hotspot model’s core elements include “concentrating resources on a tightly defined geographic area, funding a diverse group of primarily grassroots organisations to provide a range of support to the target population, and employing staff on the ground to support grantee partners and encourage the sharing of best practice”. (Source)

  • Evidence 

    • Two independent evaluations reported strong effects in Indian hotspots, but despite good methodological qualities, they had no control groups and don’t fulfil the criteria for highest quality evidence. Another independent evaluation reported effects in Central Nepal, but this evaluation lacks quantitative data.

    • The mixed nature of the various NGO interventions means it’s hard to say what the “active ingredients” really are. 

    • The short timeframe also raises questions of long-term sustainability of the results: will the reduction persist after the programs end?

  • Southern and Northern India hotspots results

    • The Freedom Fund reports impressive results from its hotspot model in Uttar Pradesh in Northern and Tamil Nadu in Southern India: 

  • Freedom Fund reports $52 per person affected for the Northern India hotspot and $49 per person for the Southern India hotspot. However, “person affected” is not exactly defined in the report.

    • Using just the reduction of the number of people in bondage and the overall investment of $15.8M gives $126 per person. This seems quite low, but perhaps not impossibly so. 

    • However, given the methodological limitation below and this assessment relying on only two reports, the number cannot be taken as a face-value cost-effectiveness estimate for the Freedom Fund.

  • Freedom Fund’s hotspot model appears promising, but I am highly uncertain given the limited evidence. Freedom Fund also seems to be committed to carefully evaluating their work and publishing the results. 

    • However, I am uncertain regarding how much Freedom Fund benefits from marginal funding at the moment, so I cannot say whether donating to them is an impactful option at the moment.

Advocacy and legislation

Evidence: One review of different anti-trafficking interventions by a respected organisation in the field identified supporting governments in passing legislation as having an impact. HT Legal Center and Polaris Project is an organisation working in this are mentioned in the expert feedback I received.

  • Many countries have anti-trafficking legislation, but existing legislation is often weak. Advocating for strengthening the UK Modern Slavery Act and similar existing legislation in other countries by adding sanctions and other enforcement mechanisms could be effective. (See the UK Act)

    • Reasons this could be effective: 

      • relatively low cost of advocacy compared to potentially large downstream effects, especially large economies like the UK and the US

      • improving legislation in some countries might inspire similar changes in other countries’ legislation

    • Reasons it might not be effective

      • How much will improvements result in the problem moving elsewhere where it’s harder to detect?

      • Resistance from industry

  • In the review mentioned above, supporting governments in passing legislation had an impact when there was national ownership and sufficient time allocated “to reflect the length of time it takes to implement legislative and policy change”.

  • While direct cause-and-effect is hard to quantify, advocacy has led to higher prioritization of trafficking by governments, e.g., national action plans and increased budgets (see Funding of anti-trafficking section above)​.

Economic empowerment programmes

Innovations for Poverty Action has identified economic empowerment programs as promising interventions to combat human trafficking, but by 2023, the highest-quality evidence on the effect of these programs on trafficking rates was missing.

These interventions aim to help populations at risk of trafficking develop sustainable livelihoods, making them more economically resilient. Examples include vocational training, microfinance, and cash transfers. These programs often produce positive short-term outcomes such as skill acquisition, increased access to credit, better financial literacy, and improved self-employment opportunities. However, the evidence of long-term impact is mixed and may depend on context, implementation quality and economic conditions. More robust evidence is needed to determine whether these programs reduce vulnerability to trafficking at scale. Note: the literature I cited above focuses primarily on programs in developing contexts.

Trauma-informed mental health support for survivors

Several clinical mental health interventions have been successfully implemented with former child soldiers, but the evidence of effectiveness of these interventions for other populations at high risk of trafficking is limited. There’s strong evidence that these interventions can prevent mental health problems, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, and strengthen economic empowerment, but data on reductions in the risk of trafficking is often harder to obtain. However, given the evidence that mental health problems can be both a cause and consequence of trafficking, addressing mental health can be considered a promising strategy within a broader prevention framework.

Evidence:

Identified as promising by the Human Trafficking Research Initiative of Innovations for Poverty Action.

Three RCTs have shown that narrative exposure therapy (NET) can successfully reduce PTSD among former child soldiers as well as adult trafficking survivors.

Two RCTs on trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) suggest it can effectively reduce depression and conduct problems in war-exposed adolescents in the DRC in the short term, while another RCT found no effects for interpersonal psychotherapy for groups (IPT-G) for former child soldiers.

Training healthcare workers

Educational interventions may improve healthcare and specialized social workers’ ability to identify and support human trafficking victims in the US, but according to the Human Trafficking Research Initiative, this conclusion rests on a small number of studies and more research is needed.

Law enforcement and judicial capacity building

Law enforcement and judicial capacity building is identified as a promising, scalable intervention by Innovations for Poverty Action, but they only reference one study to support this.

  • Law enforcement and judicial capacity building are integral components of the International Justice Mission. They have reported promising results from their Program to Combat Sex Trafficking of Children in the Philippines in 2003–2015.

Summary table of interventions

Intervention How it Works (Summary) Implemented By Impactfulness
Information & Awareness-Raising Campaigns Provides potential migrants with information to prevent exploitation. NGOs, international organizations (e.g., ILO) Mixed; potentially promising when contextually tailored, otherwise limited or possibly harmful. Increasing availability of information on worker conditions in factories and ethical recruitment models promising.
Freedom Fund Hotspot Model Concentrates resources in trafficking hotspots, supports grassroots organizations, and fosters best practices locally. Freedom Fund in partnership with local NGOs Promising; significant reported reductions in bonded labor, but methodological limitations in evidence and long-term sustainability unclear.
Advocacy & Legislation Advocates for stronger anti-trafficking laws and enforcement mechanisms. NGOs, advocacy groups, governments Weak evidence but potentially impactful, especially with strong national ownership and implementation.
Economic Empowerment Programs Supports vulnerable populations economically to reduce trafficking vulnerability. NGOs, development organizations Promising in theory; high-quality empirical evidence currently lacking.
Trauma-informed Mental Health Support Provides psychological support specifically designed for trafficking survivors to address trauma. Mental health professionals, specialized NGOs Promising, especially for child survivors; limited evidence for adults.
Training (Educational Interventions) Enhances the ability of healthcare and social workers to identify and assist trafficking victims. Healthcare organizations, educational institutions Promising; effectiveness indicated in some studies, but more rigorous studies needed.
Law Enforcement & Judicial Capacity Building Strengthens judicial and law enforcement capabilities to combat trafficking. International Justice Mission, government agencies Promising and potentially scalable; evidence from specific contexts (IJM Philippines) but limited overall research.

Career advice

Because of the current state of the research into the effectiveness of anti-trafficking interventions (see above under Evidence for the effectiveness of anti-trafficking interventions), I cannot give confident advice on what works best to combat human trafficking.

Below are tentative suggestions, but they are best thought of as a starting point for your own investigation into impact opportunities.

  • Conducting or promoting high-quality research into the effectiveness of human trafficking interventions

  • Exploring promising, scalable solutions like those mentioned in the Innovations for Poverty Action 2023 Best Bets report, or ones that their Human Trafficking Research Initiative has identified (see section Tractability of Human human trafficking for more details on these interventions).

    • Economic empowerment programs

    • Law enforcement and judicial capacity building

    • Increasing the availability of information on worker conditions in factories

    • Ethical recruitment models

    • Trauma-informed mental health support for former child soldiers

    • Educational interventions may improve healthcare and specialized social workers’ ability to identify and support human trafficking victims in the US

  • Avoid interventions that have evidence of a lack of impact or potential harm (or at least approach these interventions carefully and critically)

  • Avoid being guided by sensationalising media and stereotypes

  • Consider focusing on neglected areas of human trafficking

  • Possibly: advocating for strengthening existing legislation like the UK Modern Slavery Act and similar laws in other countries by adding sanctions and other enforcement mechanisms, as existing legislation is weak.

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JD Bauman
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